So today is August 31th and my A race was in August the 18th. Don´t know what happened but even though I improved my time and won 3rd place of my AG a just was tired of triathlons for a few days. In fact haven´t done nothing after the race. Don´t worry I´m not quitting the sport I just needed a little break.

On Wednesday the 15th me and my wife, follow by a big cheering crew drove all the way up to Peten. Peten is the north most state here in Guatemala and is the place were the most important Maya cities are located. It´s almost a 6 and ½ hour drive to get there but is absolutely worth it. Somehow I managed to arrive 1:20 earlier than the other car that was driving with us (was this an early sign of what was going to happen on Saturday??? :D ) After we arrived we started our sight seeing going that afternoon to some pretty cool caves. Next day we went to a SUPER COOL canopy tour.

(I´m the 4th left to right)

They had 22 platforms were we went through the jungle seeing monkeys and in 1 platform actually sliding from one side of the road to the other. It was amazing. Next day went smoothly with a morning 15min bike ride and 15 minute run. About 1pm started to get nervous about the race. Wen´t to the race meeting and got to see many of our Tri friends. My wife and I had our dinner planned and just took our stuff to the Hotel´s Restaurant were our cheering crew was having dinner. They were nice about us bringing our own food. What do we have for dinner? Well this combination was discovered by me after many attempts to find something that wouldn´t mess with our stomach or make us sleazy the next day. After reading the Triathlte´s Training Bible again this January we experimented in the first tri of the season to go with a can of peas, a can of tuna and some bread (normaly a Bagel) and it has worked for us really good.

Before I jump to race day I have to tell you about the climate, Peten is very humid (tropical jungle) and is realy hot. The previous days we were having 33°C ( 91.4 °F) in the shadow. That is... at 9am in the morning!!!

So race day came and we were ready. Ate a Cliffbar and a bottle of GU2O and was ready to go. Before we know it we were in the water almost ready to start and BANG we started with the 2Km swim (1.24mile) on the second loop of the swim I realized I hadn´t started my monitor (the monitor was reading but hadn´t actually started the watch) that really pissed me of cause I always look at my watch to see how I´m doing during the bike and the run. It really helps me to see my real time during the run to push myself a bit harder in order to achieve my goals. So I started my watch almost getting to the first buoy of the second loop. There was this Austrian guy who was messing with me all the time during the swim and I was really pissed me luckily on the second loop we got apart. I got out of the water not knowing my time but could figure it out since the race started 7am sharp and it was a BAD swim. Don´t know what happened but I did 50minutes for that distance it was ridiculous. The only thing I think might happened is the fact that the buoys looked really far this year. Everybody was talking about that before the race. And I think my swimming pace and rhythm was fine so I´m almost sure they miscalculated the swim course in quite a few hundred meters.

T1 wen´t smoothly but same as last year my highest HR during the race was not at the washing machine nor at the toughest par of a killer hill called “El Caobo” it was in T1. I don´t know if it is because after you get out of the lake you have to climb some stairs to get to the transition area but it´s starting to get funny. I need to get socks for biking and also I don´t have my shoes clipped to my pedals but believe me my new Sidi T2´s really helped me getting my transition faster. And I had worked a bit in all the other details to fasten up my times and I think it went great…passed some people there.

The first 28 kilometers (17.40 miles) of the bike went smoothly I was passing some guys and passed my wife (shes far a better swimmer than me) at about kilometer 13 (mile 8). It was funny how some guys I managed to passed were passing me again a few meters later. It really pissed me of because at the beginning I wasn´t sure if was slowing down my pace or something. I couldn´t care less after I realized I was following the plan and had a steady pace. This guys were pushing themselves harder after I passed them in order to pass me back. I was not falling into that game. After a while passed everybody again and didn´t see them anymore.

The remaining 32 kilometers (19.88 miles) are the toughest ones but at the same time the most beautiful ones. In this part you are heading to Tikal´s National Park and as you get nearer the jungle gets denser. The entrance to the Park is far away from T2 you still have to ride like 15Kms (9.3miles) to get to the parking lot and to the entrance to Tikal (Maya City) in this part of the bike the road has a nice shadow, the jungle grows from one side of the road to the other almost, in some parts, forming a tunnel like pass. This year while I was riding there I got to hear some monkeys screaming to my left (talk about cheering locals :D )

T2 was nice this was my second race using elastic laces and man those things really speed up your T2 time.

One thing I forgot to mention is how this year I added salt capsules to my race and it helped me a lot in order to manage the heat. And have to ad a little advertising here for Expresso Love GU that thing really boosts your energy back.

I had 3 salt capsules in my belt for the 14Km run (8.69 mile) and it really helped me. The first half of the run is performed on asphalt and you run back the way you came with your bike. You run like heading out of the park for 3.5 Km to the turn around point. One thing that cached my eye this year is that none of the racers from the half iron man distance race had arrived to the park when I was already running, in fact the amount of people and bikes I found at T2 was small. I knew the 1/2Im distance always has more athletes than this 1/3IM mix (swim is actually ½Im distance) but regardless of that I knew there were still many people doing the short race so I was amazed my the number of runners before me. The first 7Km were done when I passed in front of T2 again and headed to the dirt part.

This part of the race is so amazingly beautiful you guys just wouldn´t believe it. In fact because this part of the race which takes place trough the jungle and temples of Tikal is why my nick name is Tikal Dog. You are running in the jungle hearing all the animal sounds seeing tourists walking around (telling you with their eyes how crazy you are running in this heat) seeing the amazing jungle and between the jungle seeing with each step you take how another Maya Temple arouses between the trees. There are some step climbs in the park and 1 of the in particular I swear to God you have to have Goat´s blood in your system if you don´t stop running and walk the damn thing. But after that is just about 1Km to the finish line so you keep pushing as you get out of it. The tourist start telling you in English, Spanish, german, Italian etc how the finish line is just a couple of meters ahead. After a while I see it and almost no people are there not even my cheering crew. I see my time with the race officials and aren´t that happy I got 18 minutes better than last year but I was aiming for at least 25 minutes better. I mean….the 20 week Mark Allen training plan was hard to follow and I expected a lot. But I think I just had to much energy on my system. This year was the first race I didn´t felt bad when I finished. I felt somewhat fresh and it pissed me off a bit because I knew I could have done better. But it was what it was and I knew I had done a pretty good job.

I was waiting for my wife and started to get worried since she had an issue with one knee a couple of weeks ago and when we crossed paths during the run she told me it was hurting like crazy (it actually wasn’t the knee but a muscle issue but presented it self as knee pain) time went by and she didn´t showed up. And I was so worried that she wouldn´t beat hear expected time because she is really hard to herself. In the end she didn´t beat her time but with all the pain she did better than last year. So even with the problems she was stronger.

We didn´t do our ritual sightseeing tour in the park after the race because of her leg but I got to climb one of the temples while I waited for her.

At the award dinner I learned I was 3rd place of my Age group and 9th of the Men´s overall!!!!

Sunday to end the trip we had a little trip to another Maya City called Yaxha this is were Survivor Guatemala took place.

I´m planning on helping promote this race next year, building it´s own website etc. Since it is an amazing race. Will let you know when it´s done.

I did the short race again but trained for the 1/2IM distance, had a some doubts about doing the long race since it´s really a hard course so maybe next year I finally do a 1/2IM (aiming for Cancun).